We love playing many kinds of games at our home. When a game does double-duty, like enabling us to have a fun time together, but also helping us to review and practice an academic subject, that's even better! We recently received Civilize This! to give it a try and see what we thought about it. Brittany was excited until she realized it was a "history" game. To her, that said, "Ugh." You can tell that history isn't her favorite subject in school, right? However, she was a good sport and helped set up the game. Civilize This! is a simple game to set up. The box contains four decks of cards and one die. Simple! This particular set is designed to easily be used in the car on road trips or other travel situations. The directions are printed on the inside of the lid, and the lid nicely closes with a hidden magnet so that the box stays shut while traveling. No need for rubber bands to hold it together! And no way for the directions to the game to become "lost." I like that! We had a good time playing Civilize This! Even Brittany. Of course, Kelsi and I loved all of the historical questions we were attempting to answer. There are 3 decks of cards with questions from different historical eras: Ancients, Medieval, and Modern History. I don't remember who won the game. I actually think we were interrupted by a phone call or something, and we didn't get back to the game right away because of other time commitments. But Civilize This! is a game that we'll play often, and it's going on our family vacation with us soon. Civilize This! is designed for 2-6 players, and it's best for ages 8 and up. Now I'd recommend that if children between 8-12 have had very little history instruction, this may be too difficult for them. We've spent years studying ancient history, medieval history, and now the Renaissance and the Reformation, which Civilize This! doesn't cover. So, we were generally able to answer most of the 5-point questions from ancient history and the middle ages, but were on the weaker side of things with modern history. Griddly Games has provided numerous suggestions to families to help them make Civilize This! more family-friendly and, in their terms, to "level the playing field". I loved their suggestions! For example, if the whole family is playing the game, Mom and Dad would need 75 points to win, while big brother needs 50 points, and little sister needs only 25 points to win. Or, another scenario they provide is to make all correct answers worth 5 points, but older players only get to answer the 7-point questions (in which they would earn 5 points, not 7). Yes, there are two types of questions: 7-pt. questions, and 5-pt. questions. Nice! Civilize This! is a great game for families who enjoy studying history, or are willing to learn about history and culture via games. Griddly Games also sells other varieties of the Wise Alec card games: Nature Nuts (fun with plants and animals), Sports Buff, and the original Wise Alec Trivia Game. In addition, other games can be found on their site. Civilize This! can be purchased online here, or you may check this page to see where in your state or country this game is available. It sells for around $15. Take a peek at what other TOS Crew members have to say about Civilize This! Disclosure: I received a free copy of Civilize This! as a member of the TOS Crew reviewing team, in exchange for a review of this product. All opinions are my own, and no other compensation was provided.
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Hi! I'm Julieanne!
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